Happy Earth Day! This civic-focused day of action is recognized across the world to bring awareness to important environmental concerns facing us today. Here at The Charles Hotel in Harvard Square we aim to remain eco-friendly all year round. Here are just a few of the green initiatives in which we take part:
- The Hotel implements a guestroom green program, allowing a multi-stay guest to choose whether to have their linens cleaned daily or whenever a tag is placed on a frame indicating cleaning would be desired. This helps save water and limits the amount of phosphates discharged into the water system.
- Every year our staff volunteers with the Harvard Square Business Association’s Annual Clean Up Day to beautify our neighborhood.
- We donate our used soap bars and plastic bottles to Clean the World, a social enterprise that distributes recycled soap and hygiene products to children and families in countries with a high death rate due to acute respiratory infection (pneumonia) and diarrheal diseases (cholera) – which are two of the top killers of children under 5. Since joining this initiative our donations have created almost 5,000 new soap bars and 3,000 hygiene kits. For more information on their efforts, visit www.cleantheworld.org.
- Through our property-wide recycling efforts, including composting organic matter from our kitchens, we were able to save the following resources in 2017:
- 5,579 trees
- 127,986 gallons of oil
- 1,312,680 kilowatt hours of energy
- 2,297,190 gallons of water
- 1,083 cubic yards of landfill space
- In 2009, the Charles Square Parking Garage introduced the nation’s first “Juice Bar,” created with BMW Group Designworks USA, which makes charging hybrid electric vehicles simple, intuitive and free.
- In 2015, the Charles Square Parking Garage was awarded by the Green Parking Council for being the first certified green garage in Massachusetts and one of the top seven “pioneers” in the country.
- The Hotel has a free bike share program for hotel guests and has a nearby public bike share station, Hubway, in front of the Harvard Kennedy School.
Thank you for supporting us in our endeavors to keep our planet healthy and beautiful. We need to do our part now more than ever.
To learn more about what you can do to take part in Earth Day, visit their website at https://www.earthday.org/.
